I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

(By the way you should totally read the short story the title of this post comes from, but I must warn you, it is a brilliant story, but it is also one of the most depressing things you will ever read)

Today was not a good day.

I was overcome with despair. I haven’t been well all week and felt that I couldn’t take a sick day on account of having a day off this week and also having only something like 10 days left in this role.

I was holding back the tears on my walk into work.

I nearly called in sick when I was at home in the morning.

I nearly called in sick when I was on my walk to work.

I nearly turned round when I was on the campus even though I was only about 5 minutes away from my desk.

I went in. And I tried not to cry all morning.

I sent a message to my mentor at work, saying I was going to cancel our meeting on Friday, on account of how I have lost all confidence and motivation to apply for jobs and as I have no applications to go over I don’t want to waste her time.

She responded with lovely messages. I forwarded them from my work email to my personal email so I could keep the words close to me.

I had bought in soup for lunch. But I needed more. I needed comforting carbs, a cheap source of dopamine. I bought a sandwich and a banana. And I obviously had the soup as well.

I felt better after lunch in terms of my mental health, but began to feel worse physically. I was functioning at about 60% capacity.

I felt weak. I felt traumatised by my 30 minute walk to the station, then my 40 minute train journey, then a further train and a further walk home.

The boy tried to talk to me on the phone but all I was capable of was blunt monosyllabic replies in an oh so quiet voice.

The thing is a bad day isn’t a case of things going wrong for me. A bad day feels like the end of the world for me.

I feel like I am doing too much. Sometimes I have to fight the compulsion to just lie on the ground like the dude in the video for ‘Just’ by Radiohead and not be moved.

I have the urge to do self destructive things. Over eating is self destructive. It may be more socially acceptable then being an alcoholic or constantly injecting heroin into your face, but it is still a stupid action. A stupid source of negativity. I feel bad so I overeat. Then I feel bad about my appearance. Then I overeat.

My trouble is this.

If you overeat you need to find a non food way to reward yourself for good behaviour.

If you are a compulsive shopper you need to find a non financial way to reward yourself for good behaviour.

So what is my reward for being good? I can’t spend, and I can’t eat. I (don’t) shop, therefore I am (not).

Therefore I am losing the motivation to be good. Being bad is easy.

Sometimes I just want to scream. People generally scream because they are trying to attract the attention of a hero to save them, because they need help, because they are scared.